Phil Spencer has shared a special message at the dawn of Starfield’s launch, addressed to Bethesda but shared to the general public.
On Twitter, he stated:
“Congrats to @BethesdaStudios and Todd Howard on their incredible achievement. They poured themselves into #Starfield and it’s thrilling to see the response from players. I’m having a great time with my current playthrough—equal parts space hero and landscape photographer.”
Phil’s statement received comments from fans thanking Bethesda, and also Phil, for Starfield, and talking about how much they have enjoyed making it.
It’s all vindication for Phil’s decision to change the direction of Microsoft’s gaming division, towards making acquisitions of big studios like Zenimax Media and Activision Blizzard King. While the potential competition concerns regarding such big studio acquisitions are still up for debate that it’s part of ongoing regulation to this day, there was also a concern that Microsoft made the wrong decisions.
The conventional wisdom around big money acquisitions like this is that, if the owning companies don’t know how to utilize their acquired companies, they won’t be able to fully realize their potential. The big examples everyone would point to for that today, would of course, be the likes of Disney and Warner Bros. But those are somewhat debatable, and we have more concrete examples of failed acquisitions before.
The AOL- Time Warner merger, that lasted from 2001 to 2009, is an unmitigated and complete disaster, that continues to eclipse everything that came since. A year after the merger was finalized, the combined entity reported a net loss of $ 99 billion, an amount that remains unmatched to this day. While there are many elements to this story, the one that is relevant to us is AOL’s mismanagement of their purchase of Time Warner. AOL failed to bring synergy between the merged company across its different divisions, and in 2009 Time Warner would spin AOL off back into an independent, and considerably smaller, digital business.
There were valid concerns that Microsoft was acquiring companies too fast, and that Phil was biting off more than he could chew. The failed release of Redfall stands as proof that the company already made mistakes managing their projects.
But now, Starfield stands as proof that Microsoft, and Phil Spencer, bet on the right horses. Furthermore, it also seems to corroborate the upside to Microsoft’s decision to allow Bethesda to operate independently. That choice also seems to be a lesson learned from Microsoft’s history of failed and half accomplished Xbox projects.
Starfield feels like it could be the start of a new era for Microsoft, where they can stand as a credible contender in the console gaming space, as well as an important entity in the gaming market as a whole. While we wait to see how the next few years play out for Xbox, today Phil, Todd, Microsoft, and Bethesda, deserve their flowers for the successful release of Starfield.
